Smart Cities: Tripura irked over Agartala’s exclusion

Agartala, Feb 4 (IANS) Peeved over the exclusion of state capital Agartala from the Smart Cities list, Tripura’s Left Front government has lodged a protest with the Centre on the “shocking” omission.

“The Tripura government is highly disappointed to see that Agartala is not included in the smart city list released recently,” state Urban Development Minister Manik Dey wrote to union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu. He sought Naidu’s intervention to redress the state’s grievance.

Dey said the Smart City proposal for Agartala was prepared as per the urban development ministry’s guidelines and submitted within the stipulated time. “Even then, Agartala has not been selected in the first phase, which is very shocking.”

“We suspect that the team responsible for evaluating the proposals has not done the process appropriately. Otherwise, we see no reason why Agartala should not figure among the 20 (selected) cities,” Dey said in the letter released to the media on Thursday.

He said except Assam’s Guwahati, no other city from the north-east region has found a place in the list, despite much-hyped campaign for inclusive growth of the region by the Narendra Modi government.